On Tuesday, July 15, UC Berkeley Chancellor Rich Lyons, Georgetown University Interim President Robert M. Groves, and CUNY Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez will speak before the Committee on Education and the Workforce Hearing in Washington D.C. regarding “Antisemitism in Higher Education: Examining the Role of Faculty, Funding, and Ideology.” The hearing is the most recent in a series of attacks over the past 2 years that are part of the MAGA agenda to defund higher education and limit free speech on campuses across the country.

UC-AFT Local 1474 and the Council of UC Faculty Associations join faculty, students, and academic workers at Georgetown and CUNY–and thousands on campuses around the US–in condemning this latest attempt to bring fear and chaos to our universities. “The Committee is using these hearings as a thinly-veiled platform to continue their political attack on higher education, libraries, and academic freedom,” states UC-AFT President Katie Rodger. “Academic freedom is a labor issue in our universities, especially for contingent faculty. Focusing on campus protests is a diversion from the actual threats to higher education coming from right-wing attacks and decades of disinvestment in teaching and learning.”

“From cuts to vital research funding to these attacks on academic free speech,” said CUCFA President Annie McClanahan, “the Trump administration is cynically targeting higher education at every level. The freedom of both faculty and students to teach, write, and research is a cornerstone of the U.S. university system and must be defended.”

On Monday, July 14, in anticipation of the hearing leaders of the Professional Staff Congress (PSC), American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) will rally at the steps of City Hall in New York City to defend free expression and academic freedom on college campuses and oppose the MAGA Republican assault on American Universities.

UC-AFT (University of California-American Federation of Teachers) represents 6,500 teaching faculty and librarians at the University of California campuses. CUCFA represents the 12,000 UC academic senate faculty to all state- or university-wide agencies.